That Tingly Feeling

I hope one of your New Year’s resolutions is to keep your feet happy and healthy in 2014 (all the better to enjoy your shoes!).  We all know that high heels can throw us out of whack, but did you know the wrong pair can pinch nerves in your feet?

(I should remind you here that I’m not a doctor.  I’m a Shoe Fairy.  Take that as you may.)

This has happened to me, to deputy shoe fairy Cayce, and I’m sure to some of you.  You’re at a party, dancing the night away for hours in gorgeous high heels—maybe like these!

The Spycee by Steve Madden clocks in at five inches tall (with a one-inch platform).  Five inches of rhinestones, that is!  And five straps up the front to boot.  Normally I’m not a fan of aurora borealis crystals, but I sort of love this.  I can’t even imagine what they’d look like on a dance floor.  Yours for $75 from Macy’s.

But after a few hours in your fabulous heels, maybe when you go home and take them off, you realize your toes are all tingly, like they’re asleep.  When I was in my heels for twelve hours at my brother’s wedding, I found that the three small toes on my left foot were numb.  And they stayed numb for several days.

The culprit?  A pinched nerve.  This happens most often when your toes don’t have enough room, the heels are too tall, or both.  Those beautiful Steve Maddens look like prime culprits for both.  Also called a neuroma, there are many symptoms:

• Feeling numb or tingling.
• Feeling pain in the foot, which can radiate outward from the source.
• Twitching or feeling weak.
• Feeling like the foot falls asleep, or feeling like pins and needles.
• Swelling or redness.

Most of those symptoms will go away in a couple of days, if you wear shoes that give your toes enough room.  If it doesn’t go away after that, there are a few other options if you see a medical professional:

• Special padding at the ball of the foot may change the abnormal foot function and relieve the symptoms caused by the neuroma.
• Anti-inflammatory drugs and cortisone injections can be prescribed to ease acute pain and inflammation.
• Custom shoe inserts made by your podiatrist may be useful reducing symptoms and preventing the worsening of the condition.
• If all else fails, surgery which removes the inflamed and enlarged nerve can usually be conducted on an outpatient basis, with a recovery time that is often just a few weeks.

But a way to avoid all this is just sticking to lower heels on those occasions when you need to be in heels for a very long period of time.  That’s two inches or less.  Like these!

The Gabriel by Isaac Mizrahi has a 1.5-inch heel—in gold!  Look, it’s shiny metallic gold.  There’s a touch of the metallic at the back of the ankle, too, and the trim around the foot opening, but the rest is glitter!  Hooray for glitter.  The gold is $130, but the pewter version is $100—but it doesn’t have all the special touches of the gold.  Check them both out at Zappos and decide for yourself.

So take of your toesies and have many years of happy heels ahead of you!